The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1887-07-08

Pope Alexander's Line That Marked on
District Whore Peace Was Unknown-The
Ferocious Warfare Between English
and French Rovers and the Spaniards.


A buccaneer, say all the dictionaries,
was an eater of "boucan," or it may be of
a meat grilled ON "boucan," which you
must conceive to be great open-air
sridiron used by the natives of the West
Indies, and copied from them by certain
white settlers in San Domingo. So
much for the dictionaries. If you go
further and ask who were the men who
bore this name, and what they did, it is
only too probable that the answer will
be that they were pirates. This is un-
true.
If the buccaneer, says writer in the
st. James Gazette, is to be rightly de-
scribed, it is necessary first to define
term which is more often used than un-
derstood. Most people have heard or
read the words "There is no peace
beyond the line;" but it is probable that
ninety-nine men out of hundred would,
if asked, say that the line in question was
the equator. "The line" has got to have
that meaning; but when the Spaniards,
in an evil hour for themselves, first used
the phrase, they applied the words to the
line which Pope Alexander vi (Borgia)
drew from north to south down the
Atlantic to divide off all that part of the
unknown world which was the fair booty
of Spain from that which the Portuguese
were at liberty to conquer. The map
used by his holiness is still in the
Vatican, with the "Linea Divisio mis-
CASTELAR, ct Portugaen" legibly marked
on it. An interesting chapter of diplo-
matte history might be written on the
negotiations which led to and arose out
of the Pope's settlement. The Spaniard
held himself to be the absolute master of
all beyond this division, which ran, as
finally settled in 1904 at the convention
of Tordesillas, from north to south $40
leagues to the west of the Azores. Who
ever came beyond that line without
Spanish leave was an interloper, and
might be hanged when caught. If he
complained that his country was at
peace with Spain in Europe, he was told
"There is no peace beyond the line" A
Spanish officer would have considered
himself justified in hanging the Pilgrim
Fathers as pirates. For this the Span
iards have been much abused by people
who forget that the colonial policy of
France and England was quite as jealous.
The fault of the Spaniard was not that he
was more exclusive than others, but that
he was better worth plundering and ad-
vanced pretensions which he had not the
strength to maintain. In the early parts
Of the century attempts were made by
England and France to come to some
understanding with Spain as to the
terms on which their subjects should
share in the good things of the West
Indies. AS for the coal regions to he
north, they were ute rly unoccupied,
and the Spaniards, though they would
like to have kept them empty, could
not guard them any way. With the
West Indies it was different. There the
governments Of Philip III and Philip
Nv thought they could hold their
ground. They would listen to nothing.
France and England did not care to
fight on the quarrel, and so there was no
open war. But their adventures fought
for them, and, turning the Spanish say
ing to use, they too maintained that
there is no peace beyond the line. The
history of their fight with Spain is the
history of the buccaneers.
In the beginning these adventures
were well enough inclined to remain
quiet. They settled on the uninhabited
part of the coast of Hispaniola, hunted
the immense herds of wild cattle, traded
for their skins and lived on the flesh,
which they cooked after fashion on the
boucan, and called themselves the
Brothers of the Coast. Many, perhaps
most of them, were French, but there
were English and Dutch among them.
They were governed by customs of their
own, as far as they were governed at all.
Toward the middle of the seventeenth
century the Spaniards became frightened
at the increase in their numbers, and
made determined attempt to drive them
out. Then followed hideous little war of
massacre, with many moving incidents
on land and water. Some posts-the
most famous of them was the Tortuga-
were taken and retaken again and again.
Finally, the Spaniards achieved kind
of success. By incessant attacks on
tnelr scattered settlementS, and by
general slaughter of the wild cattle, they
broke up the buccaneer republic" into
two bodies. One seized defensible posts
on the west end of Hispaniola and, put
ting itself under the protection of
France, founded the colony of Hayti
The other took to the sea and, under the
name of fiibutiers-which is said to be
corruption of freebooter-fell upon the
Spaniards wherever they found them.
These are the men whom we called the
buccaneers and whom the Spaniards
called filibusteros. forming the word out
Of fiibutiers, by analogy probably with
"embustero," which is, being interpreted,
rogue.
They did not consider themselves
rogues, nor were they so regarded in
England, Holland, or France. Sober
men thought them wild fellows, but it
was held that the Spaniard had brought
them on himself. Quiet traders at home
thought of the buccaneers as a sort of
forlorn hope engaged in opening the
trade of America. The governors Of the
posts already held by these nations at
St. Christopher, Curacao, Barbados, and